The long-range forecast from the National Weather Service in Miami calls for dry weather with a slight bump-up in rain chances Thursday thanks to a tropical wave now in the Caribbean.

Drier conditions return again on Friday.

The new one-month forecast, released Saturday, shows equal chances for above, below and normal weather in both temperatures and precipitation (yes, the Weather Service really knows how to hedge its bets). The same is true for the two-week forecast. But an unusually wet July no longer appears to be in the cards for South Florida.

(AccuWeather is still predicting a wet second week of the month and also puts rain in the forecast for the week of July 22. Weather.com/ The Weather Channel shows mostly dry conditions through July 11.)

As you’d expect for this time of the year, the heat is on over the eastern two-thirds of the country. That’s going to be the case over the Florida peninsula as well, NWS forecasters said, with heat indices between 105 and 108 over the interior and west into Collier County. Palm Beach will be somewhat spared, though, by an east wind off the ocean.

In fact, the forecast high for Wednesday, July 4 is still 86 degrees in Palm Beach. And here’s why: Water temperatures at the beach are 83 degrees. As a result, the high temperature was 84 degrees on Sunday (Lake Worth Pier), compared with the airport high of 89.

The forecast high for Wellington on Monday is 92 degrees with a heat index of 101. Orlando will be in the mid-90s all week, and the high in Tallahassee Monday is expected to be 96 degrees with a heat index of 105.

FINAL JUNE RAINFALL TOTALS: 12.33 inches fell at Palm Beach International Airport, 4.03 inches over normal. The average monthly temperature was 81.3 degrees (average between the high and low added for each day, divided by 30). This is one-tenth of a degree below normal, so we were close to being right on the money.

Miami had 12.56 inches of rain in June, and Fort Lauderdale, 6.97 inches (3.19 inches under average). In spite of all the tropical weather we had around in June, Naples only had about half its normal rainfall, with 4.51 inches — a 4.31-inch shortfall.

At least for the Palm Beach area, June 2012 was a big improvement over June 2011, when temperatures were a full 3 degrees above normal and we received less than half our normal rainfall.